Dramaturgy Dalyla McGee | Synchronicity Theatre 2021

"Diamond even addresses the lack that Morrison herself found in the novel. In the afterword to a 1994 edition, she says the book doesn't effectively handle the silence at its center: the void that is Pecola's 'unbeing.' Making up for that silence, Diamond creates new monologues for the child that make clear just how desperate she is for a warm and kind touch … At the same time Diamond, like Morrison, largely avoids cheap sentimentality and keeps intact the novel's rich humor, much of it rooted in children's attempts to decipher adults' confusing coded language." -Chicago Reader

Production & History

Theme Spotlight: The 1940’s Doll Study and Youth Internalised Racism

PECOLA. And people would have to be nice and the teachers would see me, they would really look at me in my eyes and say, look at pretty-eyed Pecola. We mustn't do bad things in front of those pretty eyes. Pretty eyes. Pretty blue eyes. Big blue pretty eyes. I would be very happy, like Jane, and Shirley and the candy girl. - Act 1 Scene 3 (18)

Morrison alludes to the 1940’s Doll Study in Claudia’s monologue in Act 1 Scene 5 where we see a masterful illustration of the anger and frustration of the young Black girls wrestle with the pressure of colorism and white supremacy in formation of self esteem and identity.

CLAUDIA . It all started with my annual blonde, blue-eyed Christmas doll. What was I supposed to do with it? Feed it? Rock it? Bathe it? Be its mother? (Beat.) I’ll tell you what I did with it. I destroyed it. I had only one desire: to dismember it! If I could rip it apart, maybe I’d understand what the world thought was so wonderful about pink skin and yellow hair. - Act 1 Scene 5 (26)

In 1940, Kenneth and Mamie Clark – a husband-and-wife team of psychology researchers – used dolls to investigate how young Black children viewed their racial identities. The Clarks concluded that Black children – as a result of living in a racist society – had come to see themselves in a negative light. Results: They found that given a choice between Black dolls and white dolls, most Black children preferred to play with white dolls. They ascribed positive characteristics to the white dolls but negative characteristics to the Black ones. Then, upon being asked to describe the doll that looked most like them, some of the children became “emotionally upset at having to identify with the doll that they had rejected.”

Blue Eyes v. Brown Eyes on the Oprah Show

Theme Spotlight: A Black Girl Narrative - Hope in Mysoginoir Representation

“We have a tendency to underestimate the rich emotional and verbal life of young adults… the play is quite purposeful in its attempt to honor the sophisticated, syncopated rhythms of young speech” - Lydia Diamond, Playwrights note

Through the tone of despair in The Bluest Eye, it can be challenging to find the message of hope, however, I believe the message of hope is found in the unapologetic telling of a Black Girl Narrative and spotlighting her humanity in the representation of her pain and vulnerability. Effectively honoring the humanity of the Black Girls and women who sit at the intersections of racism and sexism. Through Pecola’s story, Morrison takes up the effects of intersectional oppression, where if you are a Black girl or woman, racism and sexism converge on your person in devastating ways - “Misogynoir”.

Misogynoir is the specific hatred, dislike, distrust, and prejudice directed toward Black women (often used attributively). Essentially, Toni Morrison calls us to “Say Her Name” and see the Breonna Taylors and Sandra Blands in Pecola’s story.

ADULTIFICATION BIAS - Theft of Black Girl Youth

Throughout The Bluest Eye, we are invited into that liminal space along side our Black girl narrators who speak with innocent youth and sophistication and with Pecola who is confronted with adult sexual victimization while holding on to fantasies.

A 2017 study, Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood, applied statistical analysis to a national study of adults on their attitudes toward black girls. It found that adults believe black girls ages 5-19 need less nurturing, protection, support and comfort than white girls of the same age, and that black girls are more independent, know more about adult topics, and know more about sex than white girls. Research Confirms that Black Girls Feel the Sting of Adultification Bias Identified in Earlier Georgetown Law Study

Theme Spotlight: Broken American Dream Myth & Dick and Jane

The Dick and Jane reader motif symbolizes the white ideal of life, love, and beauty in American society, emphasizing how one is indoctrinated into believing the ideal true.

The Black experience in America is innately different due to systems of racism in every sense and this had sharp clarity in the contrast between the Blue Eyed, Dick and Jane, Shirley Temple American Dream Pecola fantasizes about. Specifically, the Dick and Jane driven society mandates a caste system which ranks individuals in order of power and importance: white man, white woman, white boy, white girl, black man, black woman, black boy, black girl.